The 2020 Public Services Trust Blog

This morning I have been browsing through a new publication from the Centre for the Future State – housed at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) in Brighton.  The report – called ‘An Upside Down View of Governance’ – pulls together research from a five year, DfID-funded programme.  The purpose (from what I understand) has been to unpick received wisdom on good governance and how to make it better – and go back to the beginning; look from the bottom up.

This is partly interesting because it mirrors the journey of the 2020 Commission (though sadly not the 5 years and publicly funded bit!) – and its always fascinating to see how others are attempting the tricky balance between advocating a tangible shift in perspective, at the same time as saying something meaningful to people within the current system.  This is actually very hard – look at the flak Philip Blond has taken recently for example (whatever you think of the Red Tory ideas).

So the document is worth a skim through for that reason alone.  But what is it actually saying?

Firstly, stop looking at governance and development through the OECD lens.  This distorts understandings of local behaviour and culture, and drives misaligned policy outcomes.

Second, get beyond the typical Western-donor-Southern-recipient model.  OECD countries are facing economic uncertainty, and the rise of Chinese, Russian and Indian interest in Africa is marked.

So far so contextual (as they say).  The real insight of the work is around the blurred boundary between formal and informal institutions and relationships.  Good governance is almost entirely conceived through the lens of formal politics and administration – with informal networks (i.e. outside of the formal economy, through lines of political patronage, through human networks and private lives) usually cast as a malign influence on this formal world.

My reading is that the report advocates a kind of ‘get real’ perspective.  In many parts of the world, informal networks and economies are the glue that holds societies together, or the grease that oils the machinery of states.  So its better to stop ignoring these dynamics, and start being more inclusive and more understanding of how they work.

I went to a policy launch this morning hosted by Ian Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice.  It was packed out, which is a sign that they are doing some interesting and good quality work, but I guess also reflects the common perception that IDS has the ear of the leadership, and represents a ‘good angel’ on David Cameron’s shoulder, focusing him onto issues of poverty and social justice.

The event was good.  It was a launch of four or five new policy strands, each advised by a group of experts, and planned to be an exercise in consultation and community engagement.  A project on social returns from early investment sounded particularly interesting, and the centre is also working on elderly care, mental ill-health, sport and youth justice.  All ideas at early stages, but clearly some resources behind the projects, and a clear sense of overarching direction (based on the idea of early intervention) from the chairman.

What was really fascinating (to me, anyway) was the tone of IDS’s remarks.  At first parse, a world away from the stuff of Conservative reformers past.  I started to think about how the IDS agenda might match up to his party line on various things, and whether this is really what people mean by ‘progressive aims using conservative means’.  A few themes stuck out:

1. Focus on prevention and early intervention.  This was a key theme, cutting across all of the projects, and providing a narrative for the centre as a whole. Investing preventatively is proven to make economic and allocative sense, so this was largely good to hear.  But I also have some questions:  Would systematic early intervention require new national frameworks and guidelines set by Whitehall?  And if so, how does this square with handing greater autonomy to local authorities in a ‘post-bureaucratic state?’
2. A key role for the voluntary & third sectors.  This is again welcome, and consistent with an approach to public service reform that prioritises outcomes, rather than particular forms of service delivery.  But conspicuous by absence was a role for the (central or local) state.  In a more paternalistic model – which prevention can sometimes represent – the role of the state is key in terms of providing information, market shaping and also service delivery.
3. The elephant in the room.  The elephant in this particular room was the fiscal squeeze.  The long-term benefits of the CSJ approach is often very lucidly made – as in their recent paper on benefit reform.  But just as the case for up-front spending on social aims is being articulated, the shadow treasury team seem to be rolling their sleeves up for a very different agenda of rapid cuts to public spending.

Tomorrow I am at a Progress session entitled: ‘does localism hold the key to achieving efficiency while maintaining social justice outcomes in the downturn’.  I’m sure there will be lots of crossover (it will be interesting to see how much).  I just hope that the pressure being applied to these issues across the political spectrum is maintained, even as the calls for arbitrary cuts get louder.